Infiniti Enters F1

Infiniti enters F1 – no, Nissan's luxury division is not building its own car or engine. Instead it has become a major sponsor of the Red Bull Racing team, which won the Formula One Championships last year.

As Infiniti expands into overseas markets the company reckons it makes sense to have a major presence in the world's most popular motorsport series.

Red Bull Racing will continue to use Renault engines and since Infiniti is part of the Renault-Nissan alliance the tie-up is logical.

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Cynics will quickly point out that Toyota and Honda withdrew from F1 as they were unable to achieve much success and it became too expensive. However, Infiniti's financial investment is undoubtedly far far lower.

It's worth pointing out that Toyota's major sponsor was Panasonic and its sponsorship worked well. As an aside I also cover the camera industry and it is a fact that Panasonic is doing far better in camera sales in Europe than it is in the U.S. Sadly, since F1 has little overall impact in the U.S. in terms of marketing I'm not surprised at the different impact of Panasonic's past F1 sponsorship.

Based on this I expect Infiniti will do well with its strong association with Red Bull Racing, especially in the world outside of the U.S.